The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,70

her right.

The older man’s hand rested on her shoulder for a moment as they stepped into the hall. “He looks a little rough right now. Just so you know.”

“He’s awake?”

Eddie’s mother slipped out of the room and came toward them. “He’s drowsy,” she said in response to Ash’s question. “But yes. He’s awake.”

Ash left them standing in the hallway and forced herself to walk toward Eddie’s room. With one hand, she knocked, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

Oh, Eddie.

For a moment she couldn’t speak. She could barely draw a full breath. Someone had cut off the T-shirt he’d been wearing, and he sat up against the pillows with a bare chest and scrapes along his chin. One foot looked lumpy under the sheets. The edges of a purple bruise puffed out around one eye, and his right arm lay strapped in a sling across his chest.

But it was him. It was Eddie, whole and alive and looking at her with something in his gaze she couldn’t quite read. Anger? Relief? Happiness? Affection?

Neither one spoke. He’s still angry. And he had every right to be. Between her father waking them up and her ex-boyfriend reappearing with a marriage proposal, she imagined that, quite possibly, Eddie wouldn’t want anything to do with her again.

“Why the hell did you take off like that? In the middle of a storm?” They weren’t the words she’d meant to say, rough with anger and fear. But they were the first ones that came out.

He frowned. “Got about a hundred questions I could ask you, too.”

Ash hunched her shoulders. She'd screwed up. In her mind’s eye, she saw dark red hair, an hourglass figure, a local girl who’d soothed Eddie after the loss of his brother. Maybe he wanted someone like Cass, someone who didn’t lie about her background. Maybe he wanted someone who’d grown up with him, who knew all the secrets of the town. Maybe he wanted someone to climb on the back of a bike at a moment’s notice and toss her hair across his lap.

Ash didn’t have hair that tossed.

“My mom said you were here with someone.”

She nodded. “I was.” Truth. Only the truth from here on in.

“So where is he?”

She shrugged. “He left. Went back to Boston.”

“Yeah?” Eddie ran a hand through his hair.

“Yeah.”

I love you. The notion prickled her skin, startled her, terrified her, and yet the longer she stood there, the longer she knew it to be true. All the nights they’d spent on the porch, all the drinks they’d shared at the bar, all the afternoons eating grilled cheese and watching the Red Sox: they’d become all the little puzzle pieces that made up a love, and a life.

Eddie was her best friend, the one who caught her when she fell, who made her laugh until the corners of her mouth ached, who danced her to sleep under a midnight moon. He was the one who knew Ash the woman, not Ash the Kirk daughter, and not Ash the Harvard grad. He was the one who lived with her and put up with her. The one who loved her for the complicated person she was. The one who made her happy.

“If I could take it back…if I could change the things I said, the things I told you at the beginning, I would…” She trailed off. “I would have started the summer over,” she went on after a moment. “I would have told you the truth from the start.” I wouldn’t have tried to build a whole life on a lie.

Eddie didn’t say anything. Ash walked to the bed, and her legs brushed the sheet that fell over the side. From up close she could see the fatigue around his eyes, the glassiness in his expression, the scratches and scrapes along his arms. She stood beside him and held her breath. One second. Two. His free hand crawled across the blanket to hers.

“You asked them to call me?”

“Apparently.” He grinned. “Though I was pretty drugged up, so I might have asked for the Queen of England too.”

“Not Cass?”

“Come on. What do you think?” Eddie shook his head. “It’s always been you, Ash. From the day we moved in, I think.” He chuckled. “You didn’t even give me a chance, just reeled me in and made me fall.”

“But I lied about so much.” She wanted everything out in the open, every last bit of the ragged edges that needed mending.

“You had your reasons, I guess.” He lifted her hand